Goodbye, My Love
by bellagill92
Summary: She'd thought their love would be forever and would never waver. Fate, however, thought otherwise.


**A/N: I'd been working on this one for a while and once I saw I was about to reach 200 followers on Tumblr, I thought 'what the hell! I need to finish this and give it to these awesome guys who always make my day'. So, here you go! Angst... not. Seriously, it isn't.**

"No."

"_Yes_."

"_No!"_

Erza Scarlet glared at the barmaid opposite her. "Curse you, Mira! Let me have it!" she insisted.

"Not a chance. Look at the time! It's almost eleven. I'm not giving you cake this late at night! It's terribly unhealthy," Mirajane informed her, crossing her arms over her growing baby bump.

Erza's glare only deepened. It wasn't as if she could have ordered it earlier, having literally _just _arrived from a job with Jellal. He was, in fact, over at the Master's office giving his mission report at that very moment.

"Stop looking at me like that," Mira said, uncrossing her arms and picking up a glass in order to start polishing it. "You're carrying a child same as I am! You need to at least try to get healthier eating habits now, which includes not binging on sugar just before going to bed! Your baby eats what you eat!"

"Who says I'm going to bed?! Maybe I'm running a marathon after I leave this place," the redhead argued.

"Oh, are you really?" Mira said skeptically. "So where's the finish line?"

Quickly, Erza scanned in her mind for places exactly 26 miles and 385 yards away… only to find none. Sure, she knew how long it took her to get to most neighboring towns by foot but she'd never bothered to count the exact number of miles. _Damn it, _she thought, glaring at Mira and puffing up her cheeks like an angry child. "For someone with such pristine eating habits, you certainly are much bigger than I am. Aren't we supposed to be exactly three and a half months along?"

Several of the few guild members still present at the guild, busy overhearing the argument, gasped at Erza's words even though they knew it was true – although one could barely tell Erza was pregnant rather than being in the process of digesting a big lunch, Mira already had a distinctive bulge under her dress.

The she-demon's eyes narrowed into slits. "Are you calling me fat?!"

"You didn't hear that word coming out of my mouth," Erza responded. Translation: 'yes, I definitely am'.

A dark, demonic aura began emanating from the bartender. The glass that was still in her hand was crushed into tiny pieces, almost back to the rough sand it had once upon a time been – thankfully, though, said crushing had been made by the more glass-proof demonic hand that had suddenly replaced her own in the midst of her flare of temper.

"Maybe the nutritional variety is just making my baby grow more quickly than yours," Mira said through her teeth in a biting tone. "With all that sugar and so few vitamins, you're probably getting a little runt."

Erza gasped. "My baby is not a runt!" she shouted. And then, her facial expression took a fairly… nastier shift. "And you likely will not be so smug about your 'nutritional variety' in six months when you're delivering an Elfman-sized baby!"

At that, Mira blanched a little. Her earliest memory was of her mother crying inconsolably in her father's arms one day while shouting 'I can't do it again!' and 'it will tell me apart!'. Mirajane must have been about a year and a half at the time and later she had come to realize that, given the timing, her mother's horror must have been upon finding out she was pregnant with Lisanna only six months after delivering a thirteen-pound Elfman.

"Hey!" the giant in question called, poking his head out of the kitchen, where he was washing a few pots and dishes. "Big babies are manly."

"Shut up!" both women shouted at the same time, leading him to quickly cower in terror back into the kitchen.

Then, Mira turned back to Erza. "Now, you are _definitely _not getting any cake!"

"Fine," Erza said, getting to her feet. "I'll just get it somewhere else."

"Go ahead. But you might have to look pretty far to find somewhere that serves cake open at this hour!" Mira pointed out, before her face became positively evil. "Good thing you're running that marathon, isn't it?"

Erza inhaled sharply and for a moment, it looked like she might lose it. That was, until Lucy and Lisanna intervened.

"Calm down, Erza," the blonde said, trying to put an end to the fight before it became something… worrisome. Mavis knew these two's recently-reawakened rivalry (likely fueled by their respective news of incoming babies) had been giving the guild a lot of headaches. While before it had been mostly okay to let them dive head-first into their fights and come to blows, now with unborn children in the mix, that might not be too advisable. Mostly, it was up to Laxus and Jellal to keep them in line but, unfortunately, Jellal was upstairs with the Master and Laxus was away on a job with Freed, Bickslow and Evergreen, leaving the others to tackle the job.

"Why don't you sit with us for a moment?" Lisanna suggested, gently grasping the redhead's bicep and urging her to turn on the other direction, ushering her towards the table she'd been sharing with Lucy and Juvia. Natsu and Gray were also present, although in body rather than mind – their latest fight had been hard enough that they'd worn themselves out and were currently unconscious, Gray sprawled only in his underwear across the opposite end of the long bench Juvia and Lisanna were also occupying, and Natsu sitting on the other side with his face on the table by a plate of food, hugging a half-eaten turkey leg as if it was a teddy bear.

"Juvia doesn't think that getting upset like that will be good for Erza-san's baby," the water mage stated as the two other girls plopped the redhead at the end of the bench and Lucy planted the orange juice she still hadn't had a chance to drink in front of her in an attempt to satisfy at least some of her teammate's sugar craving.

"I have every right to be upset in the face of such injustice!" she turned around and shot a glare at Mira, who glared back as she polished another glass. "She is holding my cake hostage!"

The other girls used Erza's current distraction to share a look of exasperation between the three. Honestly…

"So, how did the job go?" Lucy asked, attempting to shift Erza's attention away from the cake and her wish to throttle Mira.

"It was finished successfully," Erza mumbled in a tone that didn't sound too satisfied. They weren't sure if that was caused by her current deprivation of cake or the matter of the job itself.

"Did Erza-san run into trouble?" Juvia asked. "Because Juvia could swear Master mentioned it should take about a week but you were gone for twice that time."

Erza's only response was a non-commitant grunt as she sipped on the glass of juice and, again, the girls were left wondering about what she was grunting about.

Lucy sighed. "You're still thinking about the cake, aren't you?" The redhead made a sharp intake of breath and glared daggers at the bar and, by extension, Mira. "Erza! Cut it out!" Lucy demanded.

"I want it! Damn that fiend for keeping us apart!"

"Now it sounds like Jellal-san should be concerned about it as a love-rival," Juvia mumbled under her breath.

"Don't be too hard on Mira-nee, Erza," Lisanna had the guts to urge. "She has been reading a lot of pregnancy nutrition books lately. She's being really careful about what she eats for the sake of the baby. And since you're on the same boat, she's trying to make you do the same. This is only her way of trying to look out for you, you know? She wouldn't bother if she didn't care." Risking her neck in the process, it must be added.

Erza's look of displeasure seemed to ease a little at her words. _Just_ a little. Not even good intentions could be fully forgiven for separating her from her beloved cake. "She's too meddle-y."

Fueled by Lisanna's words, Lucy also felt the need to put in her two cents. She usually just went along with indulging Erza but now with a baby involved, she wouldn't be a good friend if she didn't give her honest opinion. Even if that might lead to her getting punched in the face "Honestly do you really need to have cake at this time of the night? You already eat so much of it as it is… that can't be healthy in your condition, Erza. It's not just your health you have to care about now, so you need to control yourself around sweets."

"I _have_ been controlling myself," Erza protested. She'd been making a sacrifice to eat all the veggies Jellal would put on her plate ever since they had learned she was expecting. She had to admit it had not been as unpleasant as she would have predicted since Jellal had made an effort to be creative about the way he fed those to her, making up weird, yet surprisingly edible recipes like honey-glazed carrots or beet mousse. That was, up until they'd left for that accursed mission. "But there is a line! There is a line and two weeks without cake puts me far past it!"

The girls in the group were shocked. The idea of Erza without cake for two weeks… they'd never known her to last two days, let alone two _weeks!_

"Two _weeks_?!" Juvia asked in disbelief.

"You lived without cake for two weeks?" Lucy added. "How did you make it?

"I didn't have a choice!" Erza replied. "It was the desert! Nothing fresh grew there, much less berries of any kind! They only ate spicy meat on stale flatbread. I couldn't get within ten feet of it without feeling sick!" she said.

She wasn't just being dramatic for the sake of it. Those had truly been a horrible couple of weeks. Not only had her taste buds been utterly deprived of sugar aside from the half dozen candy bars she kept on her person (or rather, her requip space) at all times, but also her morning sickness (which had been close to none up until then) had decided to reach its peak of awfulness, leaving her unable to stomach anything from dawn to noon and triggering puking all through the rest of the day at the slightest hint of certain smells… such as the one that came with the spicy meat that compiled about 80% of the local cuisine. Jellal had been so concerned that he'd tried to convince her that they should come back to Magnolia, only for her to rebuff him, unwilling to damage Fairy Tail's reputation by leaving a mission unfinished over an upset stomach. Still, he had only stopped bothering her about it and threatening to just throw her over his shoulder and carry her all the way back home once she agreed to take it easy… which in turn had led to the delay on their job.

So, really, taking all that into account, she couldn't be blamed for desperately wanting to get her hands on the good, old, reliable and not puke-inducing cake that she had missed so much.

"But wait, don't you always carry a Mini-Bake Oven in your requip space?" Lucy asked the redhead. "And an ice-cream maker… and a cotton-candy machine… and… God knows what else." Mavis, that requip space must be cluttered.

Before Erza could respond, Lisanna did. "Well, even with those, there wouldn't be much she could do without ingredients to buy," she pointed out.

Erza nodded. "Yes. Unfortunately food tends to spoil in my requip space same as it does outside, so I am unable to stock it in bulk, especially in an extreme climate such as the one in the village we were in," she stated, sounding downcast

"Well," Lisanna started. "I guess that if you really haven't had any cake in that long, I _might_ be able to argue your case with Mira-nee," she informed the redhead, whose face lit up with hope. "No promises, though. She looks pretty pissed," the white-haired girl stated as she got to her feet.

Erza just eagerly nodded, her eyes twinkling with joy. Finally cake! Wonderful cake!

"So, what did you do to piss Mira off?" she heard a male voice asking suddenly.

Her face turned to the side and on her right, just past Lucy's seat, she saw Natsu seemed to have woken up and was currently sitting carelessly, head propped on his elbow on the table as he munched on the turkey leg he'd been previously cuddling with. There was a large splotch of gravy on the side of his face but he just plain didn't appear to care.

Lucy, however, did. "Natsu! Look at you! You're filthy!" she screeched, grabbing a bunch of napkins and throwing them at her significant other. "Clean yourself up right now!"

"But I'm eating!"

"Then do it like a civilized person without getting gravy all over yourself!" she told him. "Ugh, it's like I'm raising a child!"

Natsu groaned but he still grabbed a few of the thrown napkins and wiped his face up with them. He looked across the table and chuckled upon tilting his neck a little to get a better view of the bench and seeing Gray still out cold on it. "Ice princess is still out. _I_ win."

Juvia frowned. "Gray-sama was already tired when he fought Natsu-san," she defended him. "Juvia and Gray-sama just came back from a job while Natsu-san just hung around the guild all day doing nothing."

"I wasn't doing nothing! I fought Gajeel! And Elfman. And that bastard Loke!" the Dragon Slayer protested. Then, he turned to Erza. "Hey, Erza, wanna fight too?!"

_Whack!_ "You idiot! Don't ask her to fight you! She's pregnant!" Lucy shouted

"So what? Being pregnant doesn't make her weak! I mean, Mira's pregnant too but she still punched me unconscious this morning when I asked her if she was having twins."

Lucy covered her own face in disbelief. "How many more times are you going to need to be beat up before you realize that calling a pregnant woman fat is _bad _idea?"

"Hey! But I didn't ask because I thought she was fat. I asked because…" And he suddenly went quiet as the woman in question approached the table with Lisanna and shot him and then Erza matching glares. Then, she made a point of ignoring him in favor of her old rival.

"Lisanna tells me you have allegedly not eaten _any _cake in the past two weeks," she said, her tone a tad frosty. "Is it true?"

"… yes," Erza said, sounding a little nervous since her having cake appeared to depend on her answers.

"None at all?" Mira asked, her arms crossed as she shot the redhead a skeptical look. "Not even cake that _doesn't_ have strawberries in it?"

"None! It was hell, Mira! _Hell!_ The only thing they had remotely close to a dessert over there was Cactus Pie. _Cactus Pie_, I tell you!" she said dramatically. "It was vile!"

Were it any other person, it would have taken Mirajane far longer to be convinced. However, given that Erza was a _terrible_ actress, there was just no way she could fake that downright traumatized look in her face. It was official: Erza Scarlet had gone two weeks without the slightest bit of cake… and the most surprising thing about that was that she hadn't just wasted away because of it. With the amount of cake Erza consumed in a daily basis without getting morbidly obese, one would think her body somehow needed it in industrial quantities.

"Fine. Given the mitigating circumstances, I _guess_ you can have one little slice, then," Mira gave in, causing the redhead's face to lit up as if she'd just been offered the secret to immortality rather than a measly slice of baked goods. "With one condition, of course."

"Speak it!" she immediately demanded.

"You're drinking a healthy smoothie to make up for it."

Erza was suddenly not as eager. "Define healthy smoothie."

"Not strawberry-flavored," Mira provided. "More towards the green side of things."

"Green?" she asked in disbelief. Mira might as well have suggested she drink something especially made for Cobra's tastes.

"That's the color you get when you add in leafy greens. Like kale or spinach!"

She gasped. "Kale smoothie?! That's revolting."

"That's the price you have to pay," Mira replied. "Brave through it and you'll get your cake."

Erza looked torn. On the one hand, there was her beloved cake. On the other one… a _green_ smoothie (yuck!). Unfortunately, there could not be one without the other…

"It's really not that bad," Lisanna told her. "I tried some this morning and it was actually… tasty."

The S-Class mage was not reassured. But cake was cake and she had gone long enough without it – and so long stressing due to the absence of her cake must not be good for the baby, who surely must miss it as well, being her flesh and blood. So, she decided to bite the bullet. "Fine. I will take the challenge."

"That's the spirit," Mira said happily. Boy, was she looking forward to watching Erza making faces and possibly throw a tantrum when faced with said smoothie. Because she was still feeling petty over the earlier jab, she made a mental note to serve her on the biggest glass she had over at the bar and not to hand over any cake until she had drank every last sip. Payback was _sweet_, she said, starting to head towards the kitchen_._

Her plans came to a halt, though, when Erza found it fitting to address the matter. "Mira, wait… about what I said before concerning your size…"

"Yea?" Mira asked, her tone frosty

"You _are _unusually bigger than me…"

The barmaid was outraged. "Hey, that's not how you thank someone who'd just agreed to give you cake despite her doubts, you bitc…!"

"Let me finish," Erza interrupted her. "I said that you were big, not that you were _fat_. Your baby seems to be taking up far more space than mine… maybe you should have someone at the hospital look into that."

Mira's face shifted from annoyance to concern and her hand went to cover her bump. "You think there might be something wrong?"

"No. But I suspect Porlyusica may have been mistaken about your dates. There's only so much she can examine without the hospital's machinery. It could be that you're just farther along than you think," she offered in way of apology.

"Oh," the white-haired woman mumbled.

"Or maybe it's because you're having twins like I said. That's got to make you twice as chunky," Natsu decided to pip in, pressing Mira's anger button once more.

The barmaid looked ready to kill him. In fact, she grabbed the half-finished glass of orange juice in front of Erza and threw it right at his head (which would have probably caused quite a lot of damage, were it not for, well, him being Natsu in all his extended durability). "_You insensitive jerk of a Dragon Slayer!"_ she raged, attempting to further her aggression by all but launching herself at him, which Lisanna narrowly managed to avoid by getting in the way.

"Oh my god, run, you idiot! You're hopeless!" Lucy told him.

"But… but I'm not… and I didn't say fat!"

"Just go!" Lisanna demanded, knowing she wouldn't be able to hold her sister back much longer.

That time, the pink-haired mage was off in a flash, shouting for Happy, who quickly flew by and lifted him up into the air as soon as he was out the door, away from Mira's rage.

"He had better not be thinking of showing his face here begging for food for the rest of the week," Mira hissed. "Because if he does, something from the medicine cabinet might be displaced into his plate! Something nasty!"

"Oh, god, Mira!" Lisanna said

"Consider this my warning and feel free to pass it along," Mira warned her, turning on her heel. "I'll be back in a few minutes with your smoothie, Erza."

"I would rather you didn't and just gave me my cake," she mumbled.

Mira ignored the redhead's statement.

"Well, I guess I'll go along," Lisanna said. "Might as well make give her a hand…"

"Oh, could you bring me some tea too?" Lucy requested.

"The usual?" Lisanna asked, which got her a nod in return.

Once the Strauss sisters were gone, Erza groaned. She still had half a mind to just storm into the kitchen, get her hands on some cake and run off into the sunset with it… unfortunately, though, she would have to get past the so-called She-Demon, which she was fairly certain would lead into a fight Jellal might frown upon (he didn't ask for much of her, really, so she found it hard to go against the few requests he had made of her, such as her not overworking herself and not getting into any unnecessary dangers for the baby… something that taking the white-haired bull by the horns might entail).

So, left alone with Lucy and Juvia on the table, Fairy Tail's knight in shining armor spent a few minutes sulking at the table over her green-colored near future while her friends made conversation in the background and went about trying to convince her that the smoothie might not be _that_ bad.

Her mood didn't improve until she felt a hand being softly placed on her shoulder and Lucy moved away from her on the bench, creating come space between the two for Jellal, who had just left the Master's office, to occupy.

"Don't tell me you're already finished with the cake," Jellal said in amusement as he sat down, noting that there wasn't any plate or sign of cake in front of his beloved, which, given her eagerness, was nothing short of suspicious.

Erza groaned and went back to sulking, crossing her arms on the table and sinking down to rest her head on them. "I haven't even started it."

He raised an eyebrow, finding that odd. "Really?" he asked, absently reaching for her hair with his hand and running it down the long strands in an attempt to soothe her pitiful state. She really was worse off than she let most people see. Morning sickness had been taking a toll on her during their trip, which he deeply regretted ever letting her take. She had just started regaining her appetite couple of days before and had spent the whole train ride back home dreaming of the chance to fly back into the arms of her faithful Strawberry Cake… not that she had voiced that need too much – there was just this unique facial expression she had on that always, every time, equaled wanting cake.

"Mira-san is on a health crusade," Juvia informed him. "She refused the serve her cake unless she agreed to strike a bargain."

"What exactly does that bargain entail?" Jellal had to ask.

"This," Mira declared, appearing out of nowhere and depositing a tall glass full of frothy green liquid and a straw sticking out of it. On her other hand, she carried a plate with a metal dome on top of it – awfully odd since the guild was hardly into fancy service that involved that type of thing. "A healthy smoothy full of vitamins that your baby will relish on."

Erza looked up and glared at the offending glass. The first thing she noticed was that it wasn't as green as she had imagined it. In her mind, the smoothie had seemed like sea sludge of some sort… in reality, it had a light hue of minty green. "Vegetables have no place in the wonderful world of smoothies. Much less _kale_," Erza declared.

Mira rolled her eyes. "It doesn't have kale in it. You're lucky that we ran out, so I went with spinach instead," she said, making her way to the opposite end of the table, where she placed the domed plate. "Lisanna convinced me to add in some fruit to make the taste a little more pleasant too. _Not_ strawberry, though. Now drink up, you big baby!"

The redhead pouted. _Don't wanna_, she felt like replying, in the same fashion as a fussy child.

"Go on," the white-haired woman pressed on. "Don't you want a piece of this?" she asked, starting to lift the dome up from the plate, revealing the cake within.

So close, yet so far out of reach… On instinct, Erza started to get to her feet in an attempt to reach it… that was, until she froze as Mira threateningly started to push the plate towards the edge of the table. "Nuh-uh. You wouldn't want me to have to destroy your precious cake, now would you, Erza?" Mira threatened. "It's the last piece there is and everything…" That was a lie.

Erza gasped. "You wouldn't!" she said.

"Wouldn't I?" Mira questioned, pushing the plate even closer to the edge. "Drink. It."

The redhead gritted her teeth and, left without choice in the face of such a travesty, she reached for the godforsaken glass. "Curse you," she whispered dramatically to it before shooting a glare at Mira. Then, she brought it to her lips… and hesitated. Again and again. By then, every overlooker seemed to be on the edge of their seats. Even Gray appeared to have woken up to witness the event and was nodding silently as Juvia whispered an explanation of what was going on to him. In the background, she could even hear Cana running an impromptu betting pool.

"Just plug your nose," Jellal offered. "You won't notice most of the flavor."

She shot him an angry look that whispered the word 'traitor' even though he was only trying to be helpful (despite actually being glad that her being forced to eat vegetables by somebody else would somewhat spare him from the stressing chore of coming up with new, creative ways to do it himself). At that point, anyone who dared to interfere would get the same treatment.

Finally, she took the plunge and everyone held their breaths. She plugged her nose like Jellal suggested but failed to do it properly since the taste didn't seem dimmed whatsoever. To her surprise, however, it wasn't as disgusting as she would have predicted. The smoothie did taste powerfully of spinach but for some reason, the flavor didn't appear to offend her taste buds as much as it usually did. It was actually… not bad at all.

Of course, she wouldn't give Mira the satisfaction of winning and made a point of looking thoroughly disgusted as she defiantly held her old rival's stare while drinking the whole thing in a single go. After she was done, she plated the glass hard on the table. "_Horrible,"_ she declared for the sake of appearances.

"Oh, come on! I bet a thousand jewel that you'd throw the whole thing onto her face!" Cana complained. "Weak!"

"Shut up!" Erza bellowed before turning to glare at Mira. "Now, give me my side of the deal, you fiend!"

"Gladly!" she replied before pushing the plate, dome back in place, across the table towards Erza, who stopped it with her hand.

She lifted the metal covering and found herself looking at heaven in a plate. Her eyes shone with excitement and she picked up the fork that had been resting on the side of the spongey goodness.

"See?" Jellal said. "Wasn't it worth it?"

She smiled, starting to bring it up to her lips. "Yes, it w…" She paused as the usually-delightful smell of strawberry reached her nose… only rather than delightful at the moment, it felt utterly foul. She dropped the fork and covered her mouth, feeling an unbelievable wave of nausea hitting her all of a sudden.

Before anyone could register it, Erza was on her feet and rushing towards the nearest toilet as if her life depended on it. On her way there, she almost crashed onto Lisanna, who was so startled that she dropped the tray she'd been carrying, tea and all. Jellal was the first to react to Erza's plight, rushing after her in alarm while everyone else just stood there utterly dumbfounded.

"What just happened?" Lisanna asked, completely confused.

"I don't… know," Mira responded.

"The cake made her sick!" Cana shouted. "What the hell?! Is this bizarro world?!

Lucy was looking weirdly at Mirajane. "You didn't happen to… put something in Erza's cake, did you?" she had to ask

"What? No, of course not!" she replied, sounding legitimately shocked by what had happened. "I would never lace a pregnant woman's food."

"Maybe it has gone bad?" Juvia suggested.

"I find that hard to believe. I just baked it this morning and have been serving it all day," Mira stated. "No one got sick before."

"Weird," Gray pointed out. "Hey, could you bring over a new fork so we can see if there's something wrong with it?"

Mira nodded and turned around to call for her brother to bring it over, as well as a mop to clean up the mess made when Lisanna had dropped the tray.

"Well, I'm going to make Lucy a new cup of tea," Lisanna said, having picked up the biggest pieces of broken mug off the floor and placing them on the tray.

"Maybe bring some for Erza too," Mira suggested. "Something that will calm her stomach. Peppermint or chamomile…"

Lisanna nodded and walked away just as her brother came by with the extra cutlery.

"Juvia doesn't taste anything wrong with the cake," the water-mage declared a minute later after she'd sampled some of it.

Gray nodded. "It tastes the same as always. It kind of makes me feel like Erza will jump out of that bathroom and stab me for eating it…" he mumbled.

"I guess we should take into account that Erza _is _pregnant and therefore her stomach is bound to be more sensitive," Lucy pointed out.

Mira nodded. "That's right. In fact, I read that some women can…"

"_You wretched monster! First you make me drink that revolting smoothie and then you try to poison me?!"_ Erza bellowed from across the room, having just exited the restroom.

"Erza!" Jellal protested, trying to steady her threatening movements, which were somewhat wobbly.

"Calm down," Gray said from the table. "Lucy, Juvia and I just tried the cake and we're fine. There was nothing wrong with it."

"Then how do you explain my sickness?!" Erza demanded as she approached, looking pale and clammy. Jellal hovered with his arm around her and didn't let go until she sat down, clearly concerned. The redhead winced at the sight of her beloved cake, which she had fought so hard for, demolished by somebody else's hand.

Mira cleared her throat. "As I was telling them, I read in one of my pregnancy books, that sometimes pregnancy can cause women to become avert to certain smells and flavors that they had liked in the past. Maybe that's what's wrong with you now – you just can't stomach strawberry things."

"No," Erza denied immediately. "No, no, no, no. That's can't be it. You're mistaken. There must be another explanation. Maybe that smoothie was the culprit. Yes, it definitely was!"

"There's nothing wrong with the smoothie either," Mira said, glaring. "I took pity on you and served it in a smaller cup than I usually use but since I had made my usual quantity, I drank what was left of it myself. You don't see me hurling too, do you?"

Erza didn't respond, instead glaring back at the white-haired woman just as her sister arrived with another tray.

"Here," Lisanna said, placing a mug of tea in front of Erza. "This should soothe your stomach." And then, she placed another in front of Lucy.

Tired and feeling her stomach uncomfortably empty, Erza immediately brought the mug up to her lips and sipped on the tea. Her eyes widened just as she tasted it. It was… wonderful. Glorious. Amazing… She had never drunk such a marvelously-tasting tea before in her life. What was that fantastic flavor?

"Er, Lisanna. I don't think this is my tea. This is chamomile," Lucy pointed out.

"Really? Oh, I must have switched it with Erza's! I'm so sorry! I'll bring you another," Lisanna immediately apologized.

"No, that's okay. I like chamomile too. And I guess that as long as Erza is okay with… _oh my god!"_

Erza was alarmed. "What? What is it?!"

"You are drinking my tea! And you're happy about it!" Lucy said in disbelief.

"So?" Erza questioned. "I don't see the problem."

"Oh, oh," Mira mumbled, turning to Lucy. "You asked for your usual, didn't you?" She got a shocked nod in return. Then she faced Erza. "Her usual is lemon, Erza. Which means you're drinking lemon tea." She declared, causing the requip-mage's eyes to widen in horror. "And you are _liking it!_ I told you it was your sense of taste that was all messed up!"

Silent, Erza started to shake her head. No. No. That couldn't be right. That could _not be happening to her_. Her body could not be rejecting strawberry, the most wonderful flavor in the world, in favor of… of… bitter horribleness! The enemy of all things sweet, intruder of confectionary – her most detested _lemon_.

"No, this can't be lemon! It doesn't even taste bitter!"

"But it is," Lisanna corrected her. "Look into the mug. There should even been a bit of lemon peel in it."

Horrified, Erza looked down… and found said peel in her mug indeed. "No, no, no, no, _no_! This can't be! This can't…" She got to her feet suddenly and then, without a warning, her legs started to give in as she felt herself slumping down.

"Erza!" Jellal called in alarm as he caught her limp form.

"Is she okay?" Gray asked.

"It… it seems like she passed out," Jellal said, picking her up into his arms and getting no reaction or protest from her.

"Oh my," Mira said, feeling equal amounts amused and concerned. "Looks like it was too much for her to take."

"Maybe Jellal-san should have Erza-san looked at," Juvia suggested. "Just in case."

"That's right. You should take her to Porlyusica. It's not like her to pass out like this," Lucy told him.

Jellal nodded. "Yes, I think I'll go right there," he agreed, starting to carry her towards the door.

"Let us know what she says," Lisanna requested.

By her side, Mira scratched her chin a little devious. "Hmm… I wonder if my cookbooks have a good recipe for lemon cake," she mused.

"Mira-nee!"

"What? I'm trying to be helpful."

* * *

Porlyusica deemed her fit as a fiddle, if a little weakened by the peak of morning sickness, and kicked the expecting mother out of her house with mere instructions on how to cope with it as soon as she started demanding a 'cure' for her body's warped sense of taste.

Jellal was left to pick up the pieces of his utterly heartbroken redhead, who simply could not accept that she would have to cross Strawberry Cake out of her diet for the foreseeable future. She did not stop cursing her fate until she literally fell asleep midsentence, so tired she was… but then, the next morning came and Erza could be found once again unable to accept her fate.

In fact, she came up with a theory that the whole thing might be an elaborate prank from the guild and, as she leaned over the toilet bowl between bouts of morning sickness, demanded that Jellal got her 'untainted' strawberry cake from the town's bakery. He could only sigh and, knowing she would not drop the matter until she had proved herself wrong, did as the redhead said… only to garner the same results as the previous night when he returned half an hour later with the cake in question.

"Here, let me put this away," Jellal said, collecting the abandoned cake that had been left on the kitchen table in the haste of them rushing back into the bathroom, Erza to puke whatever was left of food in her stomach and Jellal to hold her hair as she did so.

"No," she said weakly, taking a seat at the table. She was pale as a sheet, which was to be expected after all the throwing up she'd done. "Eat it."

"I can do that later. There's no point sitting here torturing you…"

"Do it now," she said in commanding tone.

He blinked, looking at her in surprise. "Erza…"

"I want to see you doing it," she pressed on.

"But…"

She quieted him down with a look. With a sigh, he reached for the cutlery drawer to get himself a fork and sat at the table in front of the cake. Then, giving Erza one last look for reassurance, he took the first bite.

Erza winced.

"Are you okay?" he had to ask.

"Yes," she replied, even though her tone sounded pained. "Keep going."

He hesitated a second before taking another bite. Erza's eyes were getting watery. Sweet Mavis. "Oh my god, Erza. I'm stopping this right now."

"No, don't!" she said. "Just… just tell me how it tasted like."

He blinked at her request. Tell her how it tasted like? She'd been having that cake nearly every day for the last ten or so years! She should know. "Like… cake?" he offered.

She frowned. "Be more specific."

"Strawberry cake?"

"_More_ specific."

"Strawberry sponge cake with cream frosting?" he tried another time. God, what exactly _did _she want?

"God, Jellal, must you be so uninspired?!" she snapped. "Tell me about the feelings it gives you! How your taste buds jump out of euphoria at the contact of that divine fruit! How the cream and the strawberries complement each other so perfectly that you would think they would be one single body! How every time you eat that spongey delicacy you feel like going to the cathedral and lighting up a candle to bless the soul of the mastermind who first came up with the idea for such a marvelous recipe!"

He looked at her in disbelief. He was pretty sure she was projecting her own feelings onto his action of eating cake. Sure, it was good and all but, by Mavis, it was not his favorite food by a long shot. "Yeah… er, that too," he offered anyway.

She inhaled sharply. He was making it very hard for her to vicariously live the experience of eating cake through him. He was just so… unpoetic. "Just… just classify how good it is. On a scale of one to ten, I suppose," she suggested, for the sake of salvaging at least _some_ of the experience.

"Oh. An eight, I guess." Immediately, he found himself on the wrong end of a deadly glare. "A nine! I mean a nine!" The glare didn't waver. "Ten! Definitely a ten!" But not even that appeared to work and he just couldn't go any higher without breaking the scale.

Mavis, he was starting to get scared. Really scared. Erza was losing it. Her mind appeared to have started crumbling the moment that her stomach rejected the cake. Those were mood swings, right? The ones he'd read about that became increasingly common as pregnancy went further? Because if it wasn't, that meant Erza was having an actual mental breakdown… and he could not allow the woman he so loved to lose her sanity over _cake._

Before he had a chance to do anything, though, she punched the table in fury. "Do you not understand the gift that is being able to savor the best baked dish ever invented?! It is a blessing from the world!" she said dramatically. "A blessing… a… a bless…ing that I… I have lost too… too soon!" she went on, her voice starting to break. And then, before he knew it, she was covering her face with her hands and starting to sob. A lot!

_Oh, no,_ he thought. "Erza!" he shouted, immediately rushing to her side. If there was a sight he could not stand, Erza crying had to be it… even if it was about the most ridiculous thing ever due to unbalanced hormones. He enveloped her with his arms and let her sob against his chest, having no idea what to tell her.

"_Why did it… have to be… strawberries?!_" she wailed, her voice half-muffled against his shirt. "_Couldn't it be… apples? Or oranges? I like them… too but I don't love… them. Couldn't they have… been taken away instead?!_"

Jellal sighed. "I guess it was just bad luck," he attempted to respond.

"There is something wrong with this baby, Jellal," she mumbled, her eyes haunted with alarm. Her sobs seemed to be gone as the grim declaration was made. "There has to be. For a child of mine to be so averse to a fruit I love so much…"

Oh god, things were getting even more alarming. "It's not the baby doing that, Erza," Jellal tried to explain. "It probably can't even taste anything at this point. It's the hormones in your body. They tend to mess up with it during pregnancy."

"Evil…" Erza mumbled. "They're evil, Jellal. Those hormones. We should vanquish them like we do dark guilds. Wipe out every last one of them…"

"Er… we can't. We sort of need them to live," he pointed out.

"Bastards. Why must they put us on the spot like this?" she declared. "As if it wasn't bad enough that they took my favorite snack away! What am I going to feast on now?"

Healthy food, he thought. Other baked goods that she liked. Or even, her new favorite flavor… "About that," he said, letting go of her and pushing her back onto her seat, taking a step back. "I did bring you something else just in case…" he stated, reaching for a bakery box that was resting on the counter. He brought it to the table and placed it in front of her, removing the cover to reveal squares of yellow-colored baked goods with powdered sugar on top.

"What is this?" she asked, her eyes sparkling a little. They looked tasty. Really tasty. And sweet!

"Just… try one," he urged her.

She did, too curious to resist, and at the first bite, recognition hit her in the shape of conflicting feelings. It was the same flavor from the previous night. Lemon. Her brain said _no_, her taste buds said _hell yes_… why, Mavis?! _Why?_ "Jellal…" she hissed through her teeth.

"You really liked it last night!" he defended himself before she could accuse him of anything. "So I thought, well, you might as well go with it. If your body won't stand strawberries because of the baby, maybe you could make up for it with lemon for the time being. The baker said that those Lemon Bars are a bestseller of his…"

Erza inhaled sharply. "You know that I love you, right?" she unexpectedly said. "That I will keep loving you regardless of just about anything?"

He gulped. Somehow, her sudden declaration didn't sound as good as it should "…yes?"

"Good. Then you won't take it the wrong way when I tell you that I _really_ hate you right now."

He choked a little, even though he, indeed, didn't take it to heart. "But…"

She didn't let him finish, getting to her feet and storming out… only to come back five seconds later and averting his eyes as she collected the box of lemon bars and took it with her upstairs.

Ten seconds later, he heard a door slamming on the floor above, making the very ground shake. He could only groan at that and sink back onto the chair he had been previously occupying. In front of him, there was the slice of cake that Erza had been making him eat before. He actually glared at it.

"I'm starting to hate you too," he told the baked dessert before stabbing it with his fork and eating some of it in the most hateful manner he could muster.

Those were going to be some fun six months.

**The End**

**A/N: To the anon who asked me to turn all my fics into mangas just today, I wish I had the talent for that! Anyway, I hope you guys liked it! It was just some silly fun.**

**Let me know what you think! **


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